Past Times: Shreveport soldier victim in Philippines POW massacre

1963: Jet service to begin at Shreveport's main airport

2:42 AM,
Oct. 18, 2013

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Written by

John Andrew Prime

Though late in the year that World War II ended, this day in 1945 held sad news for Shreveport, including a 3-year-old boy who learned his soldier father would never come home.

That Shreveporter was Staff Sgt. Lenton Harbin, murdered by his Japanese captors on Dec. 14, 1944, readers learned that day in The Times. Killed in what today is known as the "Palawan Massacre," Harbin and other Allied prisoners at Puerto Princesa were herded into covered trenches that then were flooded with gasoline and ignited.

Those who tried to escape the flames were gunned down. Most of the few who did get out were ...